Daniel Jacob Craven Jr., 27, is indicted on first-degree-murder charges in Ronald Justice's death, but detectives think he may have other victims.

Daniel Jacob Craven chuckled each time detectives mentioned the name of the man he's accused of killing.

He spent months mouthing off about his alleged murderous exploits to anyone in his Apopka-area neighborhood who would listen.

The cocky 27-year-old boasted Orange County sheriff's detectives would find nothing in the backyard where he is suspected of burning Ronald Justice's body while he and his friends played cards inside, investigative documents revealed.

But the earth did yield clues — and enough evidence to indict Craven on first-degree-murder charges in the death of Justice, a 30-year-old father of two and romantic rival who disappeared in 2011.

"He almost got away with us not finding anything," said Sgt. Mike Ruggiero, head of the Sheriff's Office homicide unit. "He thinks he's smarter than he is."

A handful of bones surfaced in April after crime-scene investigators sifted through the dirt from a swimming-pool-sized hole they dug in the ground behind Craven's home on Slote Drive.

The human remains corroborated the stories of a chilling slaying detectives say Craven circulated in order to inspire fear.

It worked.

Rumors of the killing — unsubstantiated at the time — reached Justice's ex-fiancé, Susan Holmes, months after he stopped showing up to see his children and the child-support checks stopped coming, a report said.

Holmes initially blamed Justice's absence on his prescription-drug habit, but when no one — including his current wife — could tell Holmes where he was, she reported him missing in May 2012. It had been more than a year since Justice was last seen.

"Every time I met someone [Craven] knew, they would give me different pieces," Holmes told the Orlando Sentinel. "I heard different times from several different people that he had killed Ron."

'A very dangerous man'

Craven was "well-known and well-disliked" in the community where he lived, Detective Danny Garcia Pagan said.

In a 2012 protective-order petition, his neighbor William Fielder described encounters in which Craven — at 6-feet-3 and 280 pounds — yelled obscenities at him, threw things on his property, stalked him and ran him off the road.

In a letter to the judge handling his petition, Fielder said neighbors heard Craven threaten to kill him. And Fielder heard that Craven had killed before — and that the teardrop tattoos on his face represented the murders he committed.

The terror Craven instilled kept silent those who had heard him brag about Justice's murder. Then homicide detectives started asking questions, and at least four people recounted the same story:

Craven broke up Justice's marriage by having an affair with his wife at the time, Jennifer Barton. Justice was moving out of the home he and Barton shared in April 2011 when Craven threatened him and told him never to come back.

The argument culminated into a deadly confrontation April 6, 2011, at a home on Adirondack Court, where Justice was allegedly squatting.

Court documents outline what Craven's acquaintances and family members told detectives: Craven told them he confronted Justice at the house and bashed him in the head with a baseball bat.

Justice begged for mercy, saying he had two children. He promised to stay away. But Craven kept swinging, according to court documents.

Several minutes into the beating, Craven was surprised Justice was still alive, witnesses recalled his telling them. Craven described handcuffing Justice and drowning him in a dog bowl filled with water, his arrest affidavit said. He put Justice's body in a bag, wrapped it in sheets or a rug and took it home to burn it.

Barton said she was awakened by Craven that night saying, "Ronnie is gone; you don't have to worry about him anymore," and he lifted a key chain that belonged to Justice, according to investigative documents. "See, I did it, Ron is gone."

For three days, Craven burned Justice's body in the backyard pit where he frequently burned furniture, trash and deer.

Barton initially denied knowing anything about Justice's disappearance when questioned by detectives. But after news outlets reported that investigators had dug up human remains, she made a hysterical phone call.

"I know what happened to Ronnie; he is dead. DJ [Craven] told me that he killed him," she told Garcia-Pagan. "I didn't tell you before because DJ said if I told anyone he would kill me and hurt my little sister."

Holmes, too, was terrified after going to detectives. She feared Craven would kidnap her kids and for months wouldn't let them go outside.

"I would make up stories ... I told them rabies was going around and wild, vicious animals were in the area," Holmes said.

She also told her kids, who knew Craven from the neighborhood, "If you ever see him — run."